I make love to you but you never notice
by forensicirulan
Summary: She didn't realize that he would have done anything for her.


Helen wore her white coat like a time-worn soldier's uniform. Her shoulders seemed tense and weary underneath and the circles under her eyes told of many sleepless nights, much like the ones under his, but James at least had a beard to hide the sadness of his mouth beneath.

It had been a terribly long week - months, years – and he decided to ask her if she would like to spend the evening together. He was tired of being alone, and he knew she was too – she hadn't told him of meeting with friends or lovers for longer than a year.

They were now sitting on her divan, with thoughts lost as the cracking of the wood filled the silence between them. The silence itself felt more comforting than some made-up conversation and false words about false interests, and they knew they ought each other than hiding their real thoughts and engaging in small talk.

It was said that the First World War has ended. Five years after the very start of it, ten months after the Germans have signed an armistice in the forest of Compiègne and three after the signing of The Treaty of Versailles, and they still couldn't think of much else but the hell it brought.

He vaguely wondered if, after that having been doctors for almost forty years, they should have gotten used to the sight of death, to the sight of those last breaths and frown smiles and screams on the faces, of emaciated bodies of humans and abnormals and the hot streaks on children's faces when they eventually had the time to tell them that they were, in fact, orphans.

He knew that Helen would never admit, but she was horrified. Not of dying or epidemics or even losing people. It was what came afterwards that appalled her.

The haunting. Whenever she slipped into sleep, those faces were there to haunt and torture her soul, scream and beg and die all over until she woke trembling in cold and sweaty sheets with her fists clenching the covers and eyes ready to scream the pain in her heart.

James had the horror of his own, but it was not like Helen's. It was _Helen_. Seeing the torment in her eyes and tasting the bitterness of her words even when she spoke kind words with a mouth curling upwards. The great James Watson, the biggest genius that has ever walked the Earth was disarmed by the ache of the only woman he's ever loved. By the ache that has been there for almost forty years, since she lost the man her heart chose over him, since he betrayed them all for his murderous habits and left anger and pain and disgust as he vanished.

He would have done anything to make her happy. He spent decades trying to do so, but his intentions were flawed at its core. Actually, there was only one flaw, but that one was too big for her to look past; he wasn't John. And for that, he had to endure the weight of his unrequited love and the pain in her eyes, the closeness of her body just as much as the distance of her heart.

It was not that she didn't let him in. She did, she thought him her biggest treasure, her most loyal, kind, smart and loveable friend, but he was a friend. The love she felt for him was impossibly big but it all seemed to pour out her heart the wrong way ever since it broke. It was another irony of creation: she fell in love with someone else and he fell in love with her, she can never look at him that way and he can only look at her so. Their words travel through different channels and his never seem to reach her as they should, never seem to make her understand that he would do anything for her.

Because it is like this: she didn't even realize the situation they were in. Even more, she mistook it. She mistook the love that engraved his tone for that between a brother and a sister, and his words of flirt for the same kind of rivalry.

Helen Magnus has always let herself be blinded by love, ever since she was born. She could never see the betrayal coming until it was too late, and it took her almost a century to learn how to arm herself against this flaw (but even then, it was not that she didn't let herself get blind. No, she didn't let herself get close so that she wouldn't love and would not get consequently blind). Such a foolish trait of a great woman like herself.

When he first explained his theory that The Treaty of Versailles was not only not the end of the war, it was what would cause another in the later future, she frowned. She knew her ghosts would never stop chasing her, would only ever take different forms as they did since the Ripper case.

It was that which occupied her thoughts then, by the fireplace and with a whiskey in her hand. Not the case per se, more the cold blooded killer in question, the one by the name of John Druitt, the one who, by all the quirks of fate that have followed her through all her life, fathered a child for her. A child whose embryo she froze and is now kept in a tank at her father's Sanctuary. The thought swelled her mouth with a bitter taste and she had to get rid of it, so she drank. She drank off her whiskey and let it burn the bitterness in her mouth and reached for the bottle to pour again.

"Drink to get drunk?" he asked as he sipped from his own glass.

She looked and him from behind her glass, but didn't answer. She leaned back on the divan and crossed her legs, sipped from her whiskey and sat it on her thigh.

"Drink to forget." she said, and looked at him with a tired smile that soon reflected on his face.

"We are so alone in this, James." she spoke again, staring at the glass she was holding. "No one knows what this is like, except you. And there are only two of us left."

"Alcohol brings out the worst of you, Helen." he said, with a kind grin on his face, but her eyes shot to his with surprising coldness and hurt.

"Don't mock me; I'm not in the mood." She said, and he held her eyes for a while. He then sighed his desperation and poured for himself as well. He was tired, too tired to play this game now so he decided to simply enjoy her presence and drink with her, if that's what it takes.

With the speed of their drinking and the lack of food in their bodies, it wasn't long before they felt the spell of the alcohol. Their reflexes delayed and thoughts formed a tangled web of hazy images with the promise of losing themselves in the feeling and forgetting their troubles until morning.

He couldn't tear his eyes from her beauty, from her now brown curls, the rise of her chest under her heavy breasts and her long, slender legs resting on each other under her skirt. It has been a long time since he had time to actually watch her, and not just steal glances from ends of corridors or while scrubbing in to operations. He relished this moment and let himself loose of worries and relaxed against his fantasies while she was still occupied with the cracking of the wood and her own thoughts.

There was some music she seemed to be hearing because she closed her eyes and started swaying to a rhythm, gently tilting her head from side to side and with the smallest of smiles forming on her features. She then uncrossed her legs and moved to rest her head on his shoulder after drinking off another glass and setting it on the table. They stayed like this for long minutes and he let his own head rest on hers, nose buried in her curls and breathing in her scent that was so mesmerizing for him, arousing and relaxing at the same time.

The reason for her smile was the haziness of her thoughts and the slowness of her motions, she felt so light and free of trouble for once. Her right had moved to rest on James' thigh, she didn't realize as he went stiff from her touch and she turned her head to look into his eyes.

"I've missed you, Jimmy." she said, and softly kissed his shoulder.

He swallowed before responding with a small kiss on her head. "I've missed you too." he said and cover her hand with his, squeezing it lightly.

She let out a quiet laughter and squeezing his hand, she looked at him. "You know what I've just realized?" she asked. "You're the only one I have." she whispered so lovingly he wanted to take all of her words into his mouth and taste them all, one by one.

Of course, with the alcohol talking to his brain and the love pounding in his veins, the way he interpreted what she said was, "You're the only One I have", when what she really meant was "You're the only one I have left", but he didn't see that.

He smiled at her and kissed the lips he was staring at so adoringly.

Her eyes widened and her left hand shot to his shoulder to push him away, but she couldn't. Her vision was a dizzying blur and his lips were warm and soft, and frankly, she started kissing back as she felt fire burning in her underbelly. When they pulled away, she swallowed at her racing heart. He put down his glass on the table and moved back at her, placing his hands on both her sides. She parted her mouth in surprise and he captured it in his, maneuvering her in a lying position on the divan.

She couldn't really distinguish if what she was doing was real or not, and it was all too blurry and she felt too good (loved, craved and not alone) to care. Instead, she kissed back and her hands went roaming around his torso. His did the same until they roamed each other out from their clothes and into each other, rocking and caressing and kissing the sweat away until they both screamed their pleasures into each other's shoulders.

Laying on top of Helen, James felt like they became one. He had never been so close to her until now, never knew what it felt like to hear her screaming his name and feel her nails dig into his back and he never knew what it felt like to mold to her body. He was sure he had arrived where he was supposed to be.

Lifting his head, he looked at her. Her head was resting on the side with her eyes shut and her chest was rising bigger with her breaths than normally.

She had fallen asleep. He beamed at her sleeping form and stayed still for a while, but he knew he eventually had to get her into the bed. They would be sore and would freeze by the morning without covers. He pushed himself up by his arms and carried her to the bed, putting her into the nightgown carefully, not wanting to wake her. He then put out the fire, pulled his shirt and underpants back on and lay next to her in the bed, pulling the covers over them so it was comfortable and fell asleep.

The next morning, he woke finding her in his arms – she somehow managed to curve herself closer to him while sleeping.

She moaned her wakening, burying her nose into his shirt deeper and feeling a bit of a headache forming. As the realization of having a body underneath hers finally sipped in, her eyes snapped open and she moved into a sitting position, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

James looked at her with a warm smile, happy to find her finally awake, but he soon realized, she wasn't as happy as him. There was fear in her eyes.

"James…" she started, with her left hand covering her with the blanket. "What are you doing in my bed? In a shirt and boxers?" she asked with a quizzical expression on her face.

His smile fell, and his brain began racing.

She didn't remember.

He contemplated his options. She obviously wasn't feeling comfortable with finding themselves in such a position. He could either tell her what happened and risk her never speaking to her again, because, he realized, what he did was, he used the situation to sleep with her… or he could say that nothing happened and not put another weight of guilt on her shoulders.

"Nothing, Helen." he used his best acting skills to pull out a small laughter. "We got very tipsy yesterday, and I couldn't for the love of all things good have gone home on my two feet, so you offered I could stay."

She swallowed, and then nodded. "Ah… my head aches. No. Actually _I _ache." she shook her head and run a hand trough her hair. "Explains why I don't remember anything." she said, smiling at the comical situation.

His heart started aching more then ever, and the wished he would die right there but forced a smile on his features. "I did say very tipsy, didn't I." He then moved out from under the covers. "You wouldn't mind if I took a shower, would you?"

"No, of course not. It's just down the corridor." she said, and laid back to the bed, wishing that bloody headache away.

As soon as he got out of the room, he leaned back against the door, drowning his anger with his thoughts.

It was then that he understood:

Between them, it has always been like this.

He makes love to her, but she doesn't notice.


End file.
